Meeting of the Parliament 23 November 2022
As for the £1 billion black hole in the NHS budget, we should look no further than Nicola Sturgeon. When she was the health minister, she failed to pass on funding from the Labour UK Government to the health budget.
I will finish with two quotations. The first is from the Scotsman leader yesterday, which said:
“Whether or not this was part of a brainstorming exercise, it is deeply concerning that it has come to this.”
That is right. Secondly, Neil Mackay wrote in The Herald:
“If the NHS is a benchmark, then the SNP is unfit for government.”
Those are damning words indeed. This cabinet secretary is unfit for office, the SNP is unfit for Government, and Humza Yousaf should do the right thing and resign.
I move,
That the Parliament notes the recent warnings by BMA Scotland about the pressures on general practice, with 81% of practices surveyed reporting that demand was exceeding capacity and it estimating that an extra 1,000 whole time equivalent (WTE) GPs are needed now; understands that not all practices have access to full multi-disciplinary teams, limiting GPs’ ability to focus on the patients that need them most, and therefore regrets the Scottish Government’s decision to cut £65 million from primary care services and £5 million from the Sustainability Payment to practices; considers that this diminishes the ability of GPs to respond to winter pressures and will exacerbate the crisis in primary care, with serious consequences for staff and patients and the wider NHS this winter; is alarmed by reports that NHS board chief executives are considering the implementation of a two-tier system of access within the NHS, and considers this to be privatisation through the back door; remains committed to the founding principle of the NHS of being freely available at the point of need; calls on the Scottish Government to reconsider the cuts to primary care and to give an urgent update on where the 800 additional GPs it pledged in 2017 will be located, and regrets that the Scottish National Party administration is considering the privatisation of the NHS in Scotland.
15:14